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A Fun Surprise...

My editor just forwarded me four color sketches by David Catrow for our upcoming book, THE MIDDLE CHILD BLUES. I am ecstatic. I laughed out loud at almost every picture; the humor he creates is terrific. Middle-kid Lee's got the blues and it really shows. Wish I could show you here, but I'm not sure if I'm supposed to. When (if) I get a thumbs-up, I'll give you a sneak peek.

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Creating enthusiasm for reading is one of the greatest things a school can do for its students. Well-planned Literacy Nights, where parents attend with their children, can boost that enthusiasm enormously. As a picture book author, I’ve had the opportunity to attend numerous literacy events at elementary schools. Some were a raging success, and others fizzled. I’ve paid close attention to what I feel worked and what didn’t. Without naming any particular schools, I thought I’d share my observations.

Ideas that Worked :
1. Cheap Dinner: Serve a free dinner at the school to start off the night – such as hotdogs and chips. The most recent literacy night I attended offered this cheap hotdog dinner on a first come, first-served basis. The response was overwhelming, and the school was packed. Food, especially food based on a literacy theme (see themes below) will draw more people to the event.
2.Attendance Prizes: Prior to the evening, announce that there will be prizes awarded for the class…

Being an author can sometimes bring about strange adventures. For example, a week ago I found myself in Beryl, Utah.

Yep. Beryl.

I hadn’t heard of it either. But a school librarian contacted me several weeks prior and asked if I’d do a school visit there. Beryl? I looked it up. That’s FIVE hours away. Whoa.

There were a million reasons to say no. Reasons like: I’ve got seven kids and mounting laundry, gas is expensive, and ten hours on the road would be horrendous. I told the school I’d need my travel expenses covered. Fine, they said. And, I’d have to charge them additional fees for the assemblies. Fine, they said. And…I’d need a screen, microphone, and a projector wired with sound….fine, fine, fine. I clicked on a map on my laptop and showed my husband. “Should I go to Beryl?” I asked.

Yesterday my eighteen-year-old son with autism was wiping off the kitchen counter. He stopped, blinked a few times and said, “Mother, am I normal?”

I looked up from my laptop, surprised. He’d never asked me such a thing before. We made eye contact. I scanned my brain files for the correct response.

“I mean, what does normal mean?” he asked. “Does it mean medium? Or good? Regular? Or average? Or ordinary?”

One of his favorite things to do is to search for the meaning of words . He’ll frequently ask me for definitions, and is especially interested in classifying words with similar connotations.

But this was a profound question he was asking. What DOES normal mean, anyway?

“I suppose normal means regular or ordinary. Average," I said.

I thought about my son in his early childhood. He would scream in frustration at his inability to communicate his wants and feelings. In those days, I was an overwhelmed young mother with small children, trying to deal with what felt like his…